#I don't feel well after writing this

[dustykneed]

Hello! Random whipper snipper! Share a WIP of your work!

ooh, with pleasure. six the musical araleyn fanart? in the year 2k24? more likely than you think xDD

i realize this looks finished, but technically i'm still deciding whether to add a background or not lol. still, for the sake of sharing a proper WIP, here's a line or two from an araleyn brainworm WIP that i started reworking yesterday (mild tw for religious guilt and period-typical internalized homophobia from aragon's pov):

She remembers sharing her bed with Anne at Henry's behest, remembers the nights of tossing and turning and trying not to think about Anne asleep next to her-- remembers waking up to dark hair spilling across her pillow and the press of blood-warm bosoms against her own, softer than sin, as hot as the Devil, remembers lying still as death, mouthing prayers into the heat of Anne's neck like an act of penance.

[feroluce]

Belobog was my fave main quest but a lot of it is so. Contradictory. It's like they had multiple groups doing different shit and none of them checked in with each other for consistency. And you see this so much in Gepard's profile.

So in the main quest, they made him unfailingly, unquestionably loyal to Cocolia. Gepard's character arc is him learning to question authority etc etc. And this isn't even a bad thing; that's a story worth telling! It makes good conflict between him and Serval! And I love that we got Gepard as a boss battle and I get to see him all the time in SU!

But then you look at his character stories and it's like. The complete opposite.

According to his profile, Gepard has already HAD this awakening, long before the Astral Express, and he'd already decided Cocolia sucks. Even outside of his stories, there's a pretty damning readable between him and Pela.

He even disobeyed direct orders right in front of her- he has been disobeying orders for a while now!

So I've decided I'm marrying the two different sides of this into a 1.5k fic-ish thingy, because I think there's some fun potential there with Gepard not trusting Cocolia, but still having to pretend to be a good obedient little soldier.

Anyway. I love to think of it as like. Gepard knows Cocolia has sunk into her apathy. He can see it in her eyes every time he looks at her. She doesn't care. Not about him, not about Pela, not about all his soldiers on the frontlines giving their lives to protect the citizens. And that's... It makes him bristle a bit, but ok. Gepard can deal with this. Even if Cocolia no longer cares, as long as she does her job then it's fine. Having compassion behind an action doesn't matter as much as the action itself. If Cocolia's heart is no longer swayed, then he'll just have to care twice as hard to pick up the slack. He considers it part of his duty as a captain of the guard anyway. It's fine. Gepard can deal with it.

And then, Cocolia starts coming down to the restricted zone. Issuing direct orders.

And Gepard realizes he is in way over his head.

Because Cocolia orders him to stay back and issue commands from the ramparts, away from all his comrades, away from where he can protect them.

Gepard had thought nothing could be as bad as watching a fellow guard die right next to him. But the first time he watches someone struck by a killing blow, so far away, it hurts. Every defensive scar across his arms itches, his fingers curl in want of a weapon, the cold cannot numb his hands enough as they desperately ache for his shield. It hurts.

Gepard tries to find any reason to stay. Because surely... He knows Cocolia has lost her love for her people, but surely... She wouldn't...

One day, Cocolia orders for their gunners to advance 20 yards. There are no survivors. She almost looks like she smiles.

Gepard doesn't sleep that night.

Pela brings him the report at the end of the first month; and then the month after that, and the month after that. A significant uptick in losses, and all of it started on that first day Cocolia started overriding his authority and issuing her own orders. The ends of Gepard's pens have all been nearly chewed off. Pela outright calls Cocolia an idiot, and Gepard corrects her. Cocolia isn't an idiot. Gepard had known her through Serval, knew her through all her college years and then some, and he knows how intelligent she is. It's not that she's stupid, and it's not that she's inexperienced, it's nothing of the sort.

Cocolia knows exactly what she's doing.

She must, there's no way she could make such a horrible mess of things so badly by accident. And Pela, quick as a whip, sharp as a tack, always too smart for her own good, catches onto the meaning behind Gepard's correction without any further prompting. The tent goes deathly quiet, nothing but the wind howling outside.

"...She's trying to kill us," Pela whispers, her voice swiftly suffocated by the silence.

Gepard swallows. He can't bring himself to correct her this time. There is nothing he could say that he would actually mean.

His gaze drops, back down to his desk and the reports on it. The names aren't listed, just the numbers, but Gepard knows them, knew them, and there must be something wrong, something he's missing, because why, why would she-? What could this possibly accomplish-?

“Gepard! Focus!” Something snaps right under his nose, and Gepard startles, eyes instantly honing in on Pela's irritated face as she leans over his desk. She holds his gaze for a moment before she huffs and begins to pace, wedges a knuckle between her teeth and bites like Gepard hasn't seen her do since cadet school.

Pela angrily strides from one end of his tent to the other, words hissed between her grit teeth. “What are we going to do?” In the dim lighting, Gepard can just barely see the damp spot of blood weeping under her gloves. “We need a plan.”

“A plan?”

“Wh- Yes, a plan! Unless you want more people to die!” Pela rounds on him then, all the wrath of a blizzard, winds roaring and snow sharp enough to cut.

“We don't even know-”

“What does it matter?! She killed-!!” Pela cuts off with a garbled noise when Gepard leaps up from his desk, hastily shoves his hand over her mouth. The prosthetic, not the flesh one, because he knows better than to assume Pela won't seize the opportunity to leave teeth marks in his skin.

“You're right. I'm sorry, I'm sorry; you're right. But you need to keep quiet.” Pela quirks an eyebrow at him and Gepard can read the question in her face. “Because we both saw what she did to Serval,” he hisses.

It's amazing the snow plains haven't thawed out yet, the amount of heat Pela can put behind a glare. The mere mention of Serval, and the smoking ruins Cocolia had made of her life and career, have her bristling up like a riled cat. The sudden hot breath she takes fans fog across his metal skin, and Gepard wisely keeps it in place until Pela finally sighs and reaches up, taps her fingertips against the back of his hand.

The second she's free, Pela bats him away and then her knuckle is right back between her teeth again, Gepard leaning back against his desk with his arms crossed to watch her resume her pacing. “If we spread the word, she'll have us discharged and make sure we can't even touch the frontlines,” Pela's voice seethes like an open sore. Gepard nods but keeps his silence. He knows better than to get in her way.

“And if you and I are both out of the picture, Belobog is fucked.” A little harsher than how he would have put it, but there's no denying that they're both important to the city's survival. Pela has the restricted zone running as efficiently as ever, and Gepard had become the youngest captain on record for a reason. “We need to keep this tight under wraps, at least for now… It can't leak to anyone higher up the chain.” Another nod. “Serval might know other discontents…” Another n-

Gepard's head snaps up. “No.”

“No what?”

“No. We're not involving Serval in this.”

Somehow, even the same tone that leaves entire squadrons shaking in their boots has never worked on her. “You're not deciding that for her, Gepard.”

Pela hadn't seen the worst of it, though, back when his sister had just been banned from the Architects. Serval's pride hadn't allowed it. Pela wasn't the one to find her passed out bottle still in hand, hadn't been the one to wash the sick out of her hair or carry her to bed. 

Serval still has trouble thinking clearly when it comes to Cocolia, still can't quite bring herself to be objective. And Gepard maybe doesn't want her to be purely objective- but he would worry a lot less if she thought twice before she acted more often.

“At least let me be the one to bring it up to her.”

“Whatever, fine,” Pela gestures affirmatively at him as she paces past, and Gepard sighs. Good, at least that's one thing he can help.

From there, it's a lot of hemming and hawing and frustration. Cocolia has them under her boot, and Gepard and Pela both know it. Even with the way she's been cracking down on freedoms lately, Cocolia is still, overall, liked by the people. It's unlikely anyone would believe them. They don't even have solid proof, because most people don't know Cocolia as well as they do and won't see the clues in the same light. 

The Fragmentum has been ramping up in recent years, too. Everyone is struggling just to survive as is, they can't afford a fight on two fronts. Gepard is a damn good captain, one of the best for that matter. But they're at a massive disadvantage, his experience is narrowed to fighting a defensive battle against monsters, that's all he's ever done. That's all anyone there has ever done. He has no way of finding first-hand knowledge for taking the offensive against a human opponent, and if he goes at this blind, there's no way he'll get everyone out unscathed. He's going to lose people. He's going to lose a lot of people.

He'd never thought before that Cocolia would have it in her to have someone killed. And with this new knowledge, he has no guarantee she won't go after Serval or Lynx if she decides to retaliate.

Gepard has to remind himself to breathe when he realizes this.

Pela writes down every name the two of them can come up with. Lists and lists of names and groups and anyone they can think of who might be an ally in all of this. They memorize every bit of it, make their plans of who to talk to and when. Gepard watches the sparks reflect off Pela's glasses as they burn the evidence together.

Pela finally leaves, far too late to make it home, but says she wants to stay in the restricted zone anyway to investigate. Gepard watches her make her way in the direction of Dunn's tent, watches her back until she's out of his sight and squashes down the urge to follow and keep an eye on her. His tent feels empty.

In the morning, Gepard is up before the wake up bells. He drags himself out of bed, leads his soldiers through their morning training. The same people gravitate to each other everyday. Friend groups and training partners. There's an ongoing rivalry between a few squadrons that everyone bets on. Some of them have lockets around their necks, keepsakes, mementos. Some of them wear wedding rings.

Gepard is suddenly, painfully aware of something acidic clawing at the inside of his throat, of a heavy weight low in his chest that blooms, takes up room until it threatens to spread his ribs. His mouth tastes of bile and blood.

He rearranges the schedules. Puts himself down for every open patrol into the Fragmentum, makes sure he'll be on the frontlines every single time Cocolia visits.

He only hopes that it's enough.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

I'm not ready to shut up about Aveline and Carver--so, when you go see Aveline in Act 1, you can catch up with her a little bit and that's where this conversation can happen:

Aveline: "It's just one more change, though. The real end for me was Ostagar. What about you, Carver? You were there. Do you feel something similar?" Carver: No. Aveline: All right, then. Bit of a tit, your brother.

I wanted to see what she would say if Carver isn't in the party. Instead, she says this:

Aveline: Carver was there. I imagine he feels something similar. If he allows it.

......well, at least she didn't call him a tit?

[13eyond13]

love it when a character that's hard to read intuitively for you has like a dedicated fandom interpreter who can just glance at their blank face in a panel and then give you a 3k word essay on their innermost thoughts & desires & fears and neatly tie it back into the themes & whatnot as if it's the most obvious thing in the world

[flowerakatsuka]

mfs start crushing on a matsuno and begin to lose it—

[ blank ver. ]

[screamingwiththewolves]

I generally don't make posts like this, cause I don't wanna start an argument or disagreement, but I do find the "Is Hyde really a person?" discourse, a bit odd...I know it's a comic, and maybe I'll be proved horribly incorrect but...

Does he have emotions, with personality traits and preferences? Yes.

Does he insist he's a person? Yes.

Then he is, in fact, a person.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

your favorite of my favorites: A Book Poll

okay, i have now officially seen Just Enough open tags to override my vampiric need to be explicitly invited into things, so! here are my (current) Five Favorite Books for y'all to vote on, in order of Publication Date (and incidentally the order in which i read them)

shout out to @e-b-reads and @beardedbookdragon for the recent open tags! i am inflicting this on paying this forward to @asexualbookbird and @alloreli (who i warned), and to @sixofravens-reads (who i did not).

[iguessthisisanewobsession]

Rent is a terrible musical and Jason will not be the first person in Gotham to voice this opinion

it's a musical that while having the backdrop of the story being about revolution against an upper class that refuses to make anyone uncomfortable. The status quo is not rocked so people with money can still relate.

The entire character cast are assholes, even the kindest of the main cast still murdered a dog and sang a catchy tune and had no remorse afterwards.

the show never really goes anywhere, character 's don't change and frankly don't care to.

It idealizes drug use and being poor, while there is a subplot for the homeless, there is no care shown for them and kind of implies a choice to be homeless.

That being said he was in the main cast as angel.

Jason is a hypocrite but is well aware of the fact unlike the rest of his family.

He doesn't choose the musical, the director did, and when he had a role time seems to slow down.

Being a vigilante, everything is fast paced, you need to get ducks in a row before one of the ducks takes out an third of the alley.

But to be able to shelf that mindset, even if only for the rehearsals it was nice.

That being said, artistic liberality is a thing.

To hell with angel going into the light peacefully, it ain't right for someone dying of a disease that can be treated.

If you wanted a show about romanticizing dying from a disease than you should go to the opera they tried to be with La bohème and tuberculosis.

No Jason is going to lasso his rage and put a pretty mask on it until he feels the need to put his own twist on a scene.

[lambinarmor]

captain wesker wears grey sweatpants sometimes

[winchestersheaven]

me: i’m gonna read Rodney McKay fics

fandom: we have lots of McShep

me: McShep is good, i like that ship

me: so, McShep fics with Rodney feels, please

fandom: sure thing, lots of Rodney feels here 😇

fandom: *bombards me with unexpected John feels*

me: hey, uh. why is my heart all fucked up?

[quinloki]

Birthday Request Event

"It's my birthday and I'll write what I want to \o/"

Gift Details ♥ Reader: afab/fem!Reader Character: Trafalgar Law Kink: #8 Breeding Kink Prompt: #9 "Fuck, you feel so good." Gift Giver: @jadedrrose

Summary: Law promises to attend to you thoroughly, after you spent all day wanting his attention.

Content Notes: vaginal fingering, light begging, praise, dirty talk, cream pie, soft dom Law

This birthday party is 18+, consensual unless explicitly stated otherwise, and BYOB

Your hands were on the backs of your knees, holding onto your legs as Law’s hands pressed into your thighs, helping you spread your legs wider for him. The position was embarrassing, more so because he’d spent a few minutes just looking at you while you held yourself open for him. Those golden eyes didn’t seem to miss anything, and the tip of his tongue over his upper lip as he nearly leered at you already had your breath coming out heavy.

“You look so beautiful like this,” he murmurs, hand running down your thigh as he unbuttons his jeans, pushing the pants and boxers down and stroking his stiffening cock slowly.  The way your expression changed when you saw his dick just turned him on more.

It wasn’t fear, not after the first time when the size had darkened your features a little, but now it was just desire. Greedy, needy, desperately obvious for him to see, and he loved it.

“Law, please,” you beg a little, shifting your hips.

“Begging already? Not even going to let me play with you a little first?” He hums the words, moving his hand from his shaft to your slit, pressing a finger against your lips. He moves it up and down a little, grinning as he pushes a long finger inside you.

“You’re already so wet.” He pushes a second finger in, causing you to gasp as a lewd wet sound fills the air. “When you said you’d been thinking about me all day, you meant you’d been thinking about doing this with me all day, hm?”

You avert your face, gnawing on your lip a little. You hear Law chuckle quietly, leaning down and kissing the top of your head.

“I’m flattered,” he assures you, leaning back and lining himself up with your soaking pussy. “If you’ve been wanting this all day, I won’t keep you waiting.”

He pushes in a little, grabbing onto your thigh once the tip’s in, and pushing your legs back as he sinks into you slowly. You let out a shaky breath as he fills you up, feet flexing as you try your best to stay still.

“That’s my good little snowdrop.” He sighs, moving your legs so your ankles are against his shoulders, threading his fingers through yours and holding your hands as he begins to move slowly. Your legs trembling against his chest make it difficult for him to continue his slow pace, but he’s not ready to rush yet.

“You always… feel so good,” he says, leaning over you. The motion presses your legs back, though not any more than they had been earlier. “Everything from your trembling limbs,” he teases, kissing your ankle. “To your tight, trembling, sweet fucking pussy.” He nearly growls the words, pinning your hands into the bed and snapping his hips into you to punctuate each word.

Law grinds his hips into you, pushing deep and leaning into you more. You gasp at the sensation, squirming under him as he begins to thrust into you, leaning low enough your legs slip off his shoulders and rest into the crooks of his arms.

He slows a little, lips brushing against yours, following behind an airy gasp from you, and kissing you deeply. His hands hold onto your tightly as his tongue pushes in your mouth, hips pushing him deeper and grinding into your clit with each shift and movement. You turn your head to the side, drawing in a deep breath and shaking from the pleasure building.

“Please!” You gasp as he kisses and licks your neck, pushing pleasure into you as you twist and tremble under him. “Please, La-Law.”

“Mmm, please what?” He murmurs into your skin, teeth sliding against tender flesh and pulling shivering gasps from you.

“F-fill me up. Cum… inside me, please.” You beg, a moan rattling in your chest as his teeth press into your skin just deep enough to make your back try to arch, despite being pressed into the mattress.

“Anything for you, (Y/N).” He agrees, nipping at your earlobe a little before he adjusts enough to start thrusting into you almost roughly. His breath is coming out heavy and you realize he was holding himself back for a while, almost as though he was waiting for you to ask for it.

His hips buck erratically, thrusting almost harshly as you feel him empty himself inside you. His fingers tighten against yours, flexing jerkily as a soft grunt turns into a few heavy breaths. He shifts his hips slowly, grinding against your clit and keeping you on edge while he takes a moment to recover.

“I’m going to fill you up twice as much as I make you cum,” he insists, grinning as he starts to move his hips more. “Or maybe I’ll make you cum twice as much as I fill you up.” He corrects, leaning low and speaking right by your ear.

“I’m sure you’ll be too full of cum and pleasure to know which one it was by the end of it.”

Check out the event - requests are accepted until 7/31/2023 EST

[chimerafeathers]

there's an essay jumbled up in my brain about dunmeshi's beginning and how clever and deceptive it is as a sleight-of-hand trick that distracts the audience from the depth and scope of the worldbuilding and foreshadowing that's being set up the entire time by dangling zany characters and wacky dishes and biology fun facts in front of us, and how that serves to catch invested viewers off guard when those elements come to the forefront, but also how it works against it with other viewers wanting "more" and not seeing it because the plot bait isn't laid out up front

how people getting frustrated with the characters "not taking things seriously" is mirrored and refuted in the confrontation between Laios and Shuro. how the characters' attitudes aren't just a result of shallow low-stakes "comedy rules" where nothing matters, but are an extension of their personalities (Laios's nonstandard expression of emotions being offputting even to people he knows) and the world and social environment (adventurers being desensitized to death and injury because resurrection magic is commonplace). the way the party refers to "saving Falin" instead of "retrieving Falin's corpse," indicating that they still see her with full personhood, and how that phrasing leads to some readers/viewers believing that Falin is alive in the dragon's stomach, conscious of being slowly digested while the party carelessly fucks around "wasting time." how the weird tonal dissonance makes sense in-universe and yet is deliberately challenged more and more the deeper the party goes

all the character building and pieces of lore slowly weaving together the shape of the larger world, laying the groundwork for the major themes that will surface later. so much is right there in the "low-stakes" early episodes if you know what you're looking for (or pass the perception checks).

it can be so satisfying to see new viewers/readers pick up on the clues even in the earliest "simple" episodes, or notice new things and make connections yourself....and it can also be frustrating to see people dismiss oddities and dissonance as shallow or bad writing because they don't expect a "cooking anime" to have depth like that. why try to question and understand and peel back the layers when you don't expect there to be any layers?

why can't laios take things seriously for once?

[naivety]

sorry but i hate that claudia's dress is hung up like it's in a museum. i know why it is, and it's sweet and tragic and i don't blame louis for trying to both honor and grieve her in this way, but i hate it <3 that her clothes fitted perfectly just for her by her immortal companion, just like her diaries, her own private thoughts penned down throughout her life, have been preserved and made perfect in bright open spotlight for gloved hands and watching eyes to feast on even in death. kinda hate it here

[thatonegayship]

I loved the cowboy comic so much that I wrote a oneshot for it. https://archiveofourown.org/works/50934235 🥺 your art is BEYOND amazing, ty for the food

INCREDIBLE!!!!!

[palettepainter]

Amazon: HEEEY!~ Hazbin hotel is getting a second season!

Me: Oh okay, that's cool I guess.

Amazon: They'll be even MORE action this season!! We're gunna focus on Alastor's backstory, and Pentious will be a key character, and Vox is gunna be a more prominent protagonist, and we'll show off more overlords, and Vaggie and Charlie get a "sexy life"~

Me: Uh-huh. And I can only assume that this season has a bigger episode count so that any of those plot points you mentioned have time to breath for more then ten minutes unlike season 1?

Amazon:

Me:.....You're gunna give this season time to breath ri-

Amazon: WE HAVE MERCH AT HOT TOPIC NOW TOO!!~

.

(Incase people don't read the tags: The reason this annoys me so much isn't because I hate the show, it's because I want this show to do well. I want this show to make me feel like I should care for any of it's characters and plot points because it's well made, not because it's been created by an artist who is already popular online. I truly believe the animators and voice actors are giving it their all for this show, the voice acting is honestly the best quality in my opinion and everyone nails their roles, but the writing and pacing has so far been a cluster fire.

This is a legit show now, it's being funded by Amazon's money with literal broadway stars as parts of the cast. If season 1 taught the people creating this show anything it's that there needs to be breathing time for the plot points and the characters, and I sincerely hope that season 2 takes this into account. I doubt it with how much they've said they're going to include, but I really hope that, for animation as a whole - cuz god knows Disney hasn't been pumping out good animated movies as of late - season 2 takes into account what season 1 did poorly and improves on it)

[longagoitwastuesday]

I am liking Jujutsu Kaisen, way more than I imagined I would, but I foresee it will let me down and it's keeping me from enjoying this as much as I could haha

I think the characters and dynamics are well set, and I think many of them have an incredibly good and deep potential, but I would be willing to bet they'll not get a proper development, enough for them to really hit. A well assembled set of gears is not enough to make the movement go, you have to wind the clockwork.

I think Gojo and Megumi have a fascinating and very complex dynamic, but I doubt it will be given the time and care that imo it needs to actually work. And it is going well enough for now! One could see the intimacy between them was deeper than the one Gojo had with, say, Yuji and Nobara ever since the very first few episodes despite the fact Fushiguro too was a first year. But the pieces forming what they have are extremely complex, and it just wouldn't be realistic if it doesn't show, even if in a not showing way, or if it doesn't have consequences or implications.

It's one of those dynamics that shape one's life, the way one regards the world, the way one establishes or not relationships with other people. It's one of those dynamics that could be full of fondness, gratitude, resentment, admiration, trust, and that imply intimacy, the good kind or the bad, even if in just the knowledge of someone who's been a constant through your life. It could, and would, imply a myriad of feelings, and probably in such a mix it could imply contradictory feelings too. Even the nothingness would weight, even the nothingness would be significant and meaningful.

Gojo took Megumi and his sister under his wing, the son of a man who murdered him, because of both selfish and selfless reasons. Megumi looks like Toji. What does Gojo feel about this? How does Gojo deal with this? How does Gojo go about taking care of Megumi? Would he walk him to school? Make him breakfast? Celebrate his birthdays making him blow candles? Did he take him to the zoo? Does the relationship between them feel professional or is it something more? Gojo appreciates his students, but is Megumi to him just another student? When Gojo faces Sukuna in Megumi's body, did he see the kid he raised, or does he just see Sukuna in one of his students' body? Did he have one faint wavering instant? And how does Megumi feel about this? Is he resentful of him? Resentful of the situation? Of the selfishness behind his actions? Does he feel like a pawn? Is he grateful? Does he resent feeling grateful? Would he rather not? Does he love Gojo? Does he feel nothing about him other than what he could feel about a teacher that sort of annoys him but knows he's reliable in his strength? Does he think it unfair, cruel or unfeeling that Gojo is close, closer perhaps, with Yuuji or Yuta, considering their story? When Sukuna slices Gojo in two, does the remnants of Megumi's soul tremble?

And not just Megumi and Gojo. Yuuji and Nanami, Gojo and Nanami, Yuuji and Fushiguro, Nobara and the boys, or Nobara and Maki, Todo and Yuuji or Yuta, Gojo and Yuta, Megumi and his sister. Gojo and Geto, even! If the pieces are well set, the dynamics are intriguing, interesting, and have potential to be deep, but then the characters have like two plot relevant scenes that punch you hard, but little more, it's not nearly enough. Especially not nearly enough for the enormity that is shonen dynamics and situations. And the potential existing at all, and then not delivering, makes it all the more frustrating when you're left with something mediocre that could have been so good.

The development of dynamics through not only a few plot relevant gut wrenching moving scenes, but also the smallness of life, is important. The friend who recommended this to me said that those things were just unnecessary filler, but I disagree. I think there's a big difference between a large amount of anime-only filler episodes whose existence is based on the fact they had run out of manga chapters to animate, and moments of quietness. The low stakes character-driven moments of quietness can be so telling and so insightful, and they are so satisfactory when brought back later in higher stakes situations. My friend teased me there was no scene of Gojo making breakfast to Megumi, that it would be an idiotic idea, but it would be so telling. How he makes breakfast, what they eat, if he tries hard or if it's all mechanised, if they have personal bowls or if they use whatever, if he just buys them some pastry on the way to school, if the way they have breakfast changes through the years, or if he doesn't make them breakfast at all! All that would be very insightful on their dynamic and its evolution. All that would give a glimpse on how they regard each other and why, even in the present. All that could become meaningful in tense situations and high stakes scenes.

These moments also let the plot breath; if a lot is happening all the time, if every character is always experiencing trauma after trauma, the entire story is so emotionally draining that at some point you don't even care all that much. Besides, these nothing moments or low stakes plot arcs, besides deepening and developing dynamics, also let some in-world time pass, which would make the intimacy and bond between characters more believable imo; between Yuuji eating Sukuna's finger and their last confrontation in December how much time has passed? A few months? Am I truly to believe these characters are so everything to each other in only a few months?

Without some smallness, some repetition, some daily life, some low stakes not plot-centric development, the dynamics don't hit, they don't truly feel fleshed out, and dynamics as complex as the ones Megumi and Gojo have, or as supposedly meaningful as the one Megumi has with Yuuji or his sister, should be fleshed out if they're going to exist at all. Otherwise they'd risk making the writing feel awkward and fake. Besides, if the dynamics felt well fleshed out and realistic, they would shape the way the characters interact and act, and how they deal with situations, thus being plot relevant.

The shonen genre has so much happening all the time, the stakes are so high, the dynamics are so rooted in big events and the relationships carry enormous weight and implications. Yet they barely get developed, and it feels so stupid, so plain, the absence of something so important noticeable like a constant void, a shapeless nothingness present in every scene. It makes the characters feel like cardboard figures. Jujutsu Kaisen is already getting a better job than many, but I doubt it will do enough for what I've heard, and I fear I am bound to feel let down, and bound to feel unmoved.

After all, if not enough time and care has been given to develop a dynamic, I am not going to feel pressured by the high stakes; if not enough time and care has been given to develop the dynamic between Megumi and Yuuji, as good potential as it has I am bound to feel little for this last confrontation between Sukuna and Itadori, and his effort in getting Megumi back.